How To Return To What You Love After Life Kicks Your Ass

It’s been over a year since I’ve published content on Life in a Pile. I guess I had to take off to go experience life again because I had writer’s block for the longest. I didn’t plan to stay away as long as I did but life KEPT happening. Eventually, my only goal was to make it to the next day. And besides, the blog world changed on me and I couldn’t get jiggy with any of the new shit.

Lessons from 2017 and 2018 are the lessons that I will use to raise my children. I learned more about myself and others in a year and a half than I did in 24. Let me be the one to tell you: NOTHING about growth is pretty. These past 16 months were the dirtiest, grimiest, ugliest, most painful 16 months of my fucking life. I cried harder than I ever cried, fought harder than I ever fought and even fell out with God like, “nah, you got me messed up G. You’re doing way too much.” God was literally ripping me to shreds and pulling back layers that I didn’t even know existed. I felt like Ray Charles when he began to lose his eyesight: life was happening to me and my Creator was silent. However, his mother’s silence during his learning process is what taught Ray to stand on his own two feet. Although God was just as silent, He wasn’t teaching me to stand on my own two – we tried that already. He was teaching me to depend on Him. He took away vision so that I’d have no choice but to seek Him and trust that He’s still right there with me. Even if I couldn’t hear Him, see Him or see anything past my current situation, I was still expected to have faith and remember what He promised me. Do you know what it must feel like to be a visionary and have your vision taken away? To be independent and have your independence taken away? To be ambitious and have your ambition taken away? Looking back, all of those things are what replaced God in my heart and He wanted his seat back. But I’m getting too deep in the intro so let’s just get into these last 16 months.In 2017, I was a victim of identity theft. A 20K loan was taken out in my name along with three [maxed out] credit cards and some more shit. As a result, my credit went to shit and I was homeless and sleeping in a BMW from July 2017-January 2018. Homeless but make it cute, eh? From January-May of this year, I was still homeless but I wasn’t sleeping in my BMW anymore. I was sleeping in my friend’s dusty ass basement. It was a finished basement but a dusty ass basement nonetheless. Miserable was an understatement. Everything I had worked hard for since 21 was gone in a matter of months. I was now in hair school, working two jobs, selling handmade wigs and building my on-demand beauty biz, Juicee. [Fun fact: meetjuicee.com was launched in a Starbucks parking lot. It was a cold November night and I was in the backseat of my car stealing wifi.] None of my other friends really knew my housing situation. I’m a woman with pride, dammit. I was so private, I had literally spent Thanksgiving with some of them a few hours before launching Juicee from my backseat. You might be wondering,“well why didn’t you just sleep in the dusty basement?” I had school Tues-Sat; I only slept in the basement on the weekends because it was too far and I didn’t have “go back and forth Tues-Sat” money. On the weekends I would pack my stuff for the week and during the week, I would park in a parking lot near my school and sleep in the backseat. I’d wake up around 7:45a, get to school by 8, wash my ass and brush my teeth in the school’s bathroom then go do clients’ hair until 4pm. I would go to Starbucks from 4pm to closing, eat, find somewhere to park then do it all over again the next morning.But moving along, I met a boy. He wasn’t really my type at first glance but we clicked. We wanted the same things out of this life and we both had the balls to go after them. Plus, he really looked out for me and at the very least, made me happy when the rest of my life was shit. We met on Friday, went on a date on Saturday and was in a relationship by Sunday. 3 months later, we got approved for a place together. Talk about being fucking love bombed. The relationship thing was kinda cool though – I had a friend, a confidant and in-house zick. 4 months after move-in, the ticking love bomb blew up in my face. Without going too much into detail, our relationship ended with cops and abandonment.

But here’s the best part of this post: I didn’t kill myself. I think I was too low to even try. The thought probably danced in my head for two weeks straight but I just wanted to sit with my feelings. I wanted to feel everything because I knew when the pity party was over, I would never look back. The negative thoughts and feelings ain’t have to go home but they had to get the fuck up out of my life. I was never letting anyone or anything make me feel those things again. I had experienced identity theft, homelessness and abandonment all in 12 months. I was angry. I had never really been that angry before but this time I was filled to the brim with it. I couldn’t understand what I had done so bad that made God give up on me and throw me to the wolves. I had always been one of His good kids but I was starting to think He wanted me to be perfect. My best friend would come over and sit in my now empty, now boyfriend-less apartment and I think that was the only thing that held me together in August. I was sure I was losing my damn mind. I had officially hit rock bottom and capitalism is the only reason I didn’t check myself into a hospital. The only things that mattered in that apartment were my mommy’s Bible and my journal. At the time, I wasn’t even Christian. I’m not sure what I believed in but it wasn’t Jesus. The only reason I even opened her Bible was because I had to get hope from SOMEWHERE. Anything that promised hope, I was signing up for it. I needed a reason to believe I wasn’t alone. That God may be silent but He’s listening to every word and every cry. Even the ones that didn’t make it past my heart when I was too weak to speak. I needed to know that my life still had purpose and I wasn’t placed in this world just to survive it. In a way, reading her Bible was my way of demanding answers. I started reading scriptures, praying and watching a sermon from Pastor Mike Todd everyday. Every single day. Exactly 2 weeks later God finally stopped giving me the silent treatment. He gave me simple instructions: move. At this point, I thought I had already found a solution to my problem: forget my ex ever existed, find a new spot and move out. Done. My move-in date was October 11th and I just needed somewhere to crash until then. But that’s not what God had in mind. I was instructed to move to a new city! He was about to transform my whole life but I had to be planted somewhere I could grow. To make a very long blog post short, I moved out of Atlanta three months ago. Today makes the 107th day in a row I’ve read my mommy’s Bible, prayed and/or watched a sermon to start my day. It’s been 57 days since I’ve eaten meat and 123 days since I’ve seen or spoken to my ex. Everything from the identity theft is off my credit. I’ve been reading way more than I’ve been on social media. My family and I are a lot closer and I’m actually present in my friendships. My mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health has been renewed and I’m back to doing what I love the most – writing. I said all that to say: letting go of control is how you get permission to return back to what you love. You’ll be convinced the passion is gone when really it’s just waiting on you. Waiting on you to become the version of yourself that can handle what you prayed for. In the meantime, remember: you’re not being punished, baby. You’re being made over.

That is one amazing journey, Candice. I am glad that you were able to find your hope in the Lord. I ‘m still learning to do the same. I haven’t hit rock bottom but I came pretty close. I’m happy for you.